Sounds like Sennheiser may have a winner. As much as I've enjoyed my SE530 set, I have a deep seated weakness for that Sennheiser "sound" that was grafted into me 30 years ago with my first pair of HD40s. I just wish that the U.S. street price were more in line with these early prices over on the other side of the pond.

To tell you honestly, I'm not too worried about comparing the soundstage to RE-1s. My Sony EX700s have a very good soundstage that's good enough for me that it doesn't make me miss the soundstage of my RE-1s amped. Only when I start doing comparisons between armature based phones do I start hearing a big difference in soundstage (there's really a big lack of airiness with armatures, not even the SE530's soundstage compares to the RE-1s).

Todays update... These IEMs take me into the music far more than ANY other IEM I've had up to date (granted, I've only had universal fit IEMs, but - still, had the E4C, E5C, E500, UE5, TF10, ER4P, EX700 so, a fair amount of variation) - I've never felt so detached from my surroundings, by being immersed in the music - whilst out and about at least...

Oh, and as another poster thought may be the case - these are quite possibly the fastest IEMs I've heard, moreso than armatures... quite an achievment!!

Absolutely, much cleaner, richer sound... The TF10s sound quite thin / weak in comparison... which goes back to one of my earliest comments, where the IE8s seem to tread the magical line straight inbetween the TF10 and E5x0...

Sounds like these will be a "must try" earphone for me once they become available at a reasonable price in the USA. So far, I haven't been completely happy with what I've heard from the Westone UM2 and my first set of Triple.Fi 10. I'm avoiding the Shure SE530 because of the cable issues.

Sounds like these will be a "must try" earphone for me once they become available at a reasonable price in the USA. So far, I haven't been completely happy with what I've heard from the Westone UM2 and my first set of Triple.Fi 10. I'm avoiding the Shure SE530 because of the cable issues.

avoiding shure because of cable issues is silly, you may be missing out on the one sound you have not heard yet that you may just love.

the newer model shures dont have cable issues and if you do have problems id say the shure service is one of a kind. lets just say i emailed shure and ultimate ears on the same day and shure had my earphones and sent me new ones back to me before ultimate ears even replied to me.